Index

Celeron 430:This CPU did fine, but has a big drawback: It uses as much power as the E2160 does and does not have any energy-savings functions such as EIST. The performance was ok and it will do fine in games, but we would avoid such an inefficient CPU. Intel marketing speaks of reducing CO² emissions with more efficent CPUs, but Intel avoids to do so on there low-cost products.

Pentium Dual Core E2160:
This is indeed a very fine CPU, overclocks to 3GHz without more VCore, but of course needs more power when under load. This was to be expected, but is not that much a downside as it is with a Celeron. 3.6GHz may possible but only with insane VCore settings, which you should avoid, more than 1.60V VCore is quite unhealthy except you cool with water - but such users will own a more expensive CPU anyway. For office use this CPU is perfect, it does not need much power and it's really cheap.

Overall:
The most important thing for gaming is the graphics card. It seems AMD and Nvidia had an agreement to cripple their new mainstream products to 128bit memory interface which is devastating for performance. The new mainstream is slower than the older models. If you are into gaming avoid buying them, especially you own a screen with 1280x1024 or higher resolution. Go for a Nvidia 8800 GTS card at least, or try to get a cheap AMD X1950XT, even the AMD X1950 Pro is a good choice, because most of the time it's faster than HD 2600 XT or GeForce 8600 GTS, especially in higher resolutions.

The Celeron 430 is available for about €40,-, the E2160 with two cores does not cost twice as much, only a mere €69,- which is a really good offer.